From mid-1943 until late-1950, Eric Crozier was an essential asset to Britten’s industry. His work alongside director and radio producer Tyrone Guthrie not only introduced Crozier to the Old Vic in London, but to the BBC as well, where Guthrie also worked. Joan Cross invited Crozier and Guthrie to each direct two different productions at Sadler’s Wells in 1943. Crozier directed and produced Britten’s first two operas, Peter Grimes in 1945 at Sadler’s Wells, and The Rape of Lucretia in 1946 for the short-lived Glyndebourne English Opera Company. Crozier wrote the librettos for Albert Herring and the children’s entertainment Let’s Make an Opera (with its central opera, The Little Sweep), in addition to writing the text for the cantata Saint Nicolas, and with E. M. Forster, he was co-librettist for Billy Budd. Britten, Crozier, and designer John Piper founded the English Opera Group. The endeavour was based on ‘the Britten–Crozier doctrine’ that sought the group’s own autonomy and ultimately a home to produce such works. That home was largely realised in the founding of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts in 1948, for which Crozier was a founder and co-artistic director.

An immense labour was involved before a composer’s music could reach its public. The journey from first thoughts to first night relied on the collaboration of many individuals operating in interlocking disciplines, and none were more important to that endeavour than music publishers and agents with the firm. In Britten’s case, the most important firms are Boosey & Hawkes and Faber & Faber. This chapter portrays those who worked closely with Britten as his publishers, who supported him and championed his music, including Ralph Hawkes, Erwin Stein, Hans W. Heinsheimer, Ernst Roth, Leslie Boosey, Anthony Gishford, and Donald Mitchell. Many of these individuals formed extremely close relationships with Britten, but equally, their associations were sometimes complex or fraught.

This chapter explores Britten’s relationship with the critical press and various writers on music. The composer’s antipathy to critics is widely acknowledged, and his relationship with members of that circle could be contentious at times. In his article ‘Variations on a Critical Theme’, published in Opera in 1952, Britten addressed many of the concerns he had about music criticism in Britain and posited some remedies, but he only created further animosity in some quarters. Nevertheless, several music writers gained his confidence and respect, including Henry Boys, Donald Mitchell, and Hans Keller. Mitchell and Keller, in particular, attempted to elevate discourse about music in England and gave special attention to the works of Britten in their periodical Music Survey and in Boosey & Hawkes’s publication, Tempo, among other Britten-centred endeavours. The chapter focuses upon proponents and adversaries alike, including such disparate personalities as Eric Blom, Boys, Norman Demuth, Peter Evans, Frank S. Howes, Keller, Colin Mason, Mitchell, Eric Roseberry, Erwin Stein, Eric Walter White, and Virgil Thomson.